Because a friend of mine asked me, I called on good-natured, talkative old Simon Wheeler and asked him about my friend's friend, Leonidas W. Smiley. [(63)This story is the result of that visit. I have a deep suspicion that Leonidas W. Smiley doesn't exist; that my friend from the East never knew such a person; and that he made the request of me as a joke.][ (64)I think he imagined that if I went to Wheeler and asked him about Smiley, then Wheeler would make up a story and bore me to death with some terribly long, exasperating, useless tale. ]If that was my friend's plan, it succeeded.
I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the barroom stove of the dilapidated tavern in the decayed mining camp of Angel's, and I noticed that he was fat and baldheaded. [(65)He looked gentle, and his face showed him to be a happy, peaceful man.] He awakened and greeted me enthusiastically. [(66)I told him that a friend of mine had asked me to ask around about an old friend of his from childhood. ]My friend's old friend was named Leonidas W. Smiley. I further explained that my friend thought that Smiley was a young minister of the Gospel and that he lived in Angel's Camp—or at least he used to. [(67)I told Wheeler that I would be very grateful if he could tell me anything about Smiley, since I wanted to honor my friend’s request.]
(From The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County)
(63)
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